People were just part of the biota, no greater and often worse than any living thing. Not only was mankind on a par with the flora and the fauna, it was the enemy of creation.

This pantheistic paradigm was an explicit rejection of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian theology.

Pendley notes that the conservation movement had never been involved in Presidential politics until it rallied behind Carter in 1980. In Carter, and now Obama, the environmentalist movement enjoys a President who rejects Reagan’s human-centered conservationist model.

Sagebrush Rebel describes a 2012 meeting between President Obama and Harold Hamm, owner of Continental Resources in Oklahoma:

I told [Obama] of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC.

Obama brushed Hamm aside in his response:

Oil and gas will be important for the next few years, but we need to go on to green and alternative energy.